Make The Most Of The Coast: Build A New Park

Sometimes life involves missed opportunities, and boy, I sure missed a good one.

I failed to submit a bid for the Galt Ocean Mile Hotel a couple of weeks back, when the once-fashionable, but now-faded facility was auctioned at a distress sale for $11.6 million.

Teach me to leave my checkbook at home.

To the successful bidder, however, I make this recommendation: Tear down the old 275-room structure. Take down the fence, topped with barbed wire. Leave the palms and shrubs. Leave enough parking to accommodate, say, 100 cars. Put in an outdoor restroom, some picnic tables and grills.

In short, develop a park, not another 20-story condominium or a 500-room hotel. Make it a green oceanside oasis amid the baking concrete of massive condominiums.

That, I contend, would be the highest and best use of that land at 3200 Galt Ocean Drive -- even if it holds the potential to generate millions with a hotel or condo.

No, I do not have anything against the construction of new condominiums. Nor do I have any grudges against Galt Ocean Mile in particular. It is, in fact, an attractive, well-kept community.

But for starters, Galt Ocean Mile doesn`t need any more concrete.

Recently, I took an informal survey and counted 18 condominiums and/or ``resort hotels`` along the Mile, not including a Ramada Inn.

Among them, I counted a total of 388 residential living floors. Now, according to an employee of Frank J. Rooney Inc., a general contractor that built many of those condominiums, the average floor covers about 30,000 square feet and is about 5 inches thick in concrete.

That amounts to about 463 cubic yards of concrete per floor. As each cubic yard of concrete weighs 4,000 pounds, the average floor weighs about 1,852,000 pounds, or about 926 tons.

To compare, a fully loaded 747 weighs about 400 tons.

So, including all the condominiums, there are about 359,288 tons of concrete just in the floors. Not including foundations, driveways, sidewalks or facades. That`s a lot of concrete.

Beyond the concrete, the need for another condominium does not appear to be indicated. Real estate agents specializing in Galt Ocean Mile property estimate that about 10 to 15 percent of the area dwellings are for sale.

Further, the market is such that oceanside condominium sales are slacking. With prices generally over $150,000 on the Mile, buyers can pay less than half of that inland.

``The beach is still a popular place to buy, but the market is depressed and there is an exceedingly high inventory right now,`` said Mack Allison, communications director of the Fort Lauderdale Board of Realtors.

What will actually be erected on the 5.8-acre site of the now-defunct Galt Ocean Mile Hotel is still in the air.

The successful bidder, Charles H. Alberding, a Chicago oil man and hotel owner, said he is considering leasing the land to a Virginia development firm.

Considering Alberding, 85, owns an adjacent four-acre site, he could put up a hotel with more than 800 rooms on the two properties -- and still meet city zoning requirements.

Some people would love to see a luxury hotel go in. One of those is Don Paul Miller, broker of record of Ocean Manor Realty and Investments Inc., based on Galt Ocean Mile.

Miller believes the hotel would offer needed convention facilities and would bring the city more business.

``As far as I`m concerned, Fort Lauderdale needs a first-class hotel on the beach,`` he said. ``That`s the perfect location for it because of the exposure and because it`s at the entrance to Galt Ocean Drive.``

And, of course, a luxury hotel with at least 500 rooms would be eligible to have casino gambling. Thus, should gambling be voter-approved, that hotel would become a gold mine.

Then again, the Galt Ocean Mile Hotel was a luxury hotel in its heyday. Developed by Coral Ridge Properties Inc., it opened in December, 1957. In 1968, it was sold to companies headed by Leonard Mercer, a Philadelphia developer.

The hotel offered plush accommodations and big-name entertainment in its large ballroom.

Guy Lombardo played there. So did Patti Page and Tony Martin. Broadway producers, such as Forrest Willingham, brought musical revues there. Five hundred couples played bridge there. In 1983, a six-bout boxing card was staged there.

Progress is progress, however. Other hotels moved in and business at the Galt Ocean Mile Hotel slowed down. Its owners filed for protection under Chapter 11 of federal bankruptcy code last year.

Now its pink facade has faded. Many of the panoramic windows of its rooms are boarded up. It is a sad sight.

So, I say, tear it down and make it a park. My informal survey showed that residents of Galt Ocean Mile might go for that. But, unlike me, they are realistic.

``I don`t think it could ever come to be,`` Marilyn Herbert, a resident of Ocean Manor resort hotel, said of my park. ``If anything, it`s going to become a casino.``

Let`s see then. Another 20 floors would add another 18,520 tons of concrete. Boy, that`s a lot of concrete.